Here is what he wrote last fall about Hezbollah. The bold print emphasis is mine.
With the tension in Lebanon rising and the destruction within the Gaza strip in a brighter spot light, news media is becoming increasingly crucial to the welfare of entire world. Yet there is a strange oncoming trouble mainly within the West that is hindering the complete disclosure of truth. The problem: the occupancy of terrorism within everyday diction. More specific and relevant to the situation in Lebanon, the application of the word terrorism to Hezbollah is a detriment to both the political world and western journalistic integrity and political diplomacy.
Hezbollah, whose flag is adorned by an AK-47, is a terrorist group. The United States, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, and Israel have officially named Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.
Hezbollah has been implicated in the 1983 US embassy attack that 241 marines, the 1996 Khobar Towers attack that killed 19 in Saudi Arabia, and a whole bunch of other incidents.
Hezbollah = Terrorism.
In the latest DePaulia, Mr. Abbas takes on Thomas Klocek, the fired DePaul professor who crossed the PC line in 2004 by daring to challenging extremist positions expressed by two DePaul Muslim groups.
In January, Klocek, accompanied by DePaul mathematics professor Jonathan Cohen, and noted conservative author David Horowitz,
gave an enlightening presentation about free speech issues on college campuses.To paraphrase what I wrote afterwards, the three men may not have changed a lot of minds that night--at least yet. They did get some people thinking.
Abbas, who probably was not a student at the time of the 2004 cafeteria conversation between Klocek and the DePaul Muslim students, wrote on op-ed for the latest edition of the DePaulia about Klocek's January return to DePaul that is beyond awful, claiming that Klocek engaged in "dominating any social space in which free speech is possible."
Nope, Ali, the offended students just didn't like what he had to say--so they started a witch hunt that led to his dismissal from DePaul.
Abbas writes in a very detached style that leads me to question whether he actually attended the January free speech forum--one that was sponsored by the DePaul Conservative Alliance, a group with which Abbas seems to have an axe to grind.
Crap such as the stuff Abbas writes for the DePaulia doesn't belong in a student newspaper. It's not censorship--he can always start a blog. Besides, newspapers are not obligated to publish all letters-to-the-editors--or op-eds it receives.
The faculty adviser for the DePaulia is Mike Conklin, a former Chicago Tribune reporter. Surely he knows better. Or maybe he doesn't.
Related posts:
David Horowitz comes to DePaul
Sept 15: Second anniversary of the beginning of the Thomas Klocek affair
CAIR-Chicago recommended that DePaul fire Klocek
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